Page:Eminent English liberals in and out of Parliament.djvu/240

 refractory texts. When books failed him, he offered, he said, this prayer: "O Lord! teach me what this means." And he added, "It is marvellous how a hard, flinty text struck out sparks with the steel of prayer." I admit the sparks: but I desiderate the light of a genuine scholarship; and, though it would be most unjust to speak slightingly of Mr. Spurgeon's acquirements, I cannot but think that his influence for good would have been immensely more lasting had he acted on his father's sensible advice, and subjected himself to a sound collegiate training before becoming a teacher of other men.

The motive which determined him to reverse the sound maxim, Disce ut doceas, was characteristic. "Still holding on to the idea of entering the collegiate institution, I thought of writing, and making an immediate application; but this was not to be. That afternoon, having to preach at a village station, I walked slowly, in a meditative frame of mind, over Midsummer Common to the little wooden bridge which leads to Chesterton; and in the midst of the common I was startled by what seemed to me to be a loud voice, but which may have been a singular illusion. Whichever it was, the impression it made on my mind was most vivid. I seemed very distinctly to hear the words, 'Seekest thou great things for thyself, seek them not!' This led me to look at my position from a different point of view, and to challenge my motives and intentions. &hellip; Had it not been for these words, I had not been where I am now," &c.

Either a loud voice or a singular illusion, but in any case good enough to prevent a lad of eighteen, already acting as a pastor at Waterbeach, from seeking to com-